CHOON SIANG: Were Lee Kun Yew, Mah Bow Tan, Goh Chok Tong and the whole gang lying when they talked about your HDB flat always appreciating?
Now Lee Hsien Loong and Lawrence Wong also talk about your HDB flat appreciating when the economy grows… are they lying too?
If you think so, then my question is: are you the first owner of your HDB flat?
The first HDB flats built over 50 years ago were sold for between S$10,000 to S$30,000.
Then, in the 1980s, the next batch were sold for about S$70,000 to S$80,000.
If you were the first batch of homeowners, would your asset not have appreciated?
If you sold it today, an old flat in Bishan or Toa Payoh, wouldn’t you get back at least S$400,000?
All this fuss about how the government lied – all governments tell “half-truths”. It’s called “politics”,
The 99-year lease is there in plain sight when you sign on the dotted line, so you know that at the end of it you should get nothing back when you return the flat to the government.
You bought the right to stay there for 99 years, not to speculate on property.
If you do the math, compared to renting a flat on a monthly rent, you have saved at least $800 to S$1000 a month on the rent for a full HDB flat unit for your family to live in and so you don’t need to have sex in small spaces.
What’s there to complain?
Those who are making noise are either those who bought high expecting a windfall later, or those people who obviously didn’t read the big print which stated “99 years”.
By the way, I vote for WP and even the WP doesn’t come out and question this whole 99-year lease thing.
I think VERS is a step back and the PAP is just playing a populist game.
But even if we kick out the PAP, this 99-year HDB flat issue won’t go away.
Goh Meng Seng
August 30, 2018 at 8:38 am
Even if you are the first owner of HDB flats bought in 1970s or 1980s, your flat will turn into ZERO when the lease expired. This, it is definitely NOT the case that your flat will FOREVER appreciate! STOP OBFUSCATING the issue and hoodwink Singaporeans with semantic!
Such slogan of FOREVER Appreciation will only mislead Singaporeans into paying even more money to buy their HDB flats, regardless whether it is BTO or resale. In the end, the over consumption of housing as in HDB will result in insufficient CPF saving for retirement!
On the Contrary, VERS is the only good policy foresight they have come up with for HDB. They may not give great compensation as suggested by the author to be “populist” but they will avoid the Great Shock in demand and supply of housing when over 200k of HDB flats cone into lease expiry altogether in a short period of 7-8 years in future!
And yes, this preplanned redevelopment of old HDB estates prior to lease expiry is brought up by me.